Casting on - Safire

With the afghan draped over the guest bed in our spare room, the first spun project tucked away in a drawer, the first hank of alpaca spun, and Karina's beret ready to go in a postpack, I found myself with nothing on the needles (having abandoned the Pointless Shawl for the time being).

So I used a little of my bank holiday weekend yesterday to clear out my wardrobe, and identify gaps, and I am a little low on colour in my sweaters and cardigans. In my stash, I had 6 50g balls of red King Cole pure merino superwash in an aran weight, bought on a trip to Whitby last autumn:

That is the beautiful Whitby Abbey, of course, not where I bought the yarn! There is a great yarn shop in Whitby  (Bobbins - www.bobbins.co.uk/), which specialises in gansey patterns and yarn and one of these days I mean to treat myself...

Anyway, 300g of aran is not enough to do a full sweater or cardigan, but might be enough for something spring like and cropped or half sleeved, and on Ravelry I found this:

This is Safire, a free download by Hilary Smith Callis, and I cast on last night:

In aran weight, this shouldn't take long, and it's top-down, so no seaming, so I hope to be wearing it in a few weeks time, hopefully (at last) without always having to wear a jacket over it - our late spring has been cold and wet! I have a dull task to do today, and plan to reward myself every once in a while with a few rows, so it should have grown quite a lot by tonight.